Popularity of the Baby Name Gulia

Posts that Mention the Name Gulia

Remember that “Julia Guglia” punchline from The Wedding Singer? It came up in conversation the other day, and it made me wonder: what other -ulia names are out there?

I don’t mean familiar Julia-variants like Giulia, Yulia, and Iulia. We already know that these exist. I mean new names coined by adding a different first letter to the tail -ulia — the same way all those different -ayden names cropped up during the -ayden craze.

So have there been -ulia names that aren’t related to Julia? Sure have. Here are the ones I found in the SSA data:

Eulia. Eulia pops up most often in the 1920s, which is when Eu- names like Eunice, Eugenia, Eula and Eulalia were relatively popular.

Kulia. This one is a borderline case. Kulia is technically a Julia-variant, being a Hawaiian form of Julia, but the initial sound is totally different. (There’s no J-sound in Hawaiian.)

Lulia. Like Eulia, Lulia saw usage in the early 1900s when similar names like Lula and Lulu were common. Unlike Eulia, Lulia has since returned to the charts, no doubt thanks to the current trendiness of Lily and the like. This name is also a Hawaiian form of Lydia.

Sulia. Sulia, which reminds me of Sula, short for Ursula, popped up once in 1991.

Tulia. Tulia, which reminds me of Tulip, has been on the charts several times since turn of the century.

Ulia by itself has also been used as a name before, though it’s never been in the data. Going back to Hawai’i one last time, Ulia is both a Hawaiian form of Uriah and a Hawaiian word meaning “accident.”

Which of the above -ulia names above do you like best?

…And if you want to hear about even more -ulia names, here’s a video with dozens of obscure-but-real variants collected from the census:

A total of 4,143 babies were born in Malta in 2009. (In 2006, the number was 3,885.) These were the most popular baby names last year:

Boy Names

Luke/Luca (92 babies)

Matthew/Matthias/Matteo (84)

Jake (59)

Aiden (53)

Jaden/Jayden (51)

John/Giovanni/Jean (48)

Kaiden/Kayden (47)

Michael/Miguel/Mikele (46)

Nicholas/Nick (42)

Isaac/Izaak (39)

Nathan (38)

Liam/William (36)

Gabriel (36)

Benjamin/Ben (35)

Alexander/Alessandro/Alejandro (34)

Zachary/Zak (34)

James (33)

Daniel (33)

Denzel/Danzil (31)

Keiran (29)

Andre/Andrew/Andrea (26)

Sven (26)

Julian (25)

Kyle (24)

Joseph/Giuseppe/Beppe (24)

Girl Names

Maria/Mariah/Marie (82 babies)

Elena/Ylenia/Ella (79)

Christina/Kristina/Krista (63)

Eliza/Elizabeth/Lisa (52)

Amy/Aimee (49)

Julia/Gulia (45)

Maya/Maia (39)

Emma (39)

Martina (33)

Rihanna/Rhiana (32)

Jasmine/Yasmine (31)

Keira (29)

Mikela/Michaela (28)

Jade (27)

Hannah/Anna/Ann (26)

Nicole (25)

Mireille (25)

Hailey/Hayley (25)

Sarah/Sara (24)

Emilia (22)

Lea (22)

Thea (20)

Shania (18)

Katrina/Kate (18)

Amber (18)

Kailey/Kayleigh (18)

Faith (17)

Laura (17)

You’ll notice that Malta still lumps variants together. (They even lump non-variants like Elena and Ella together.) I’m not a big fan of this method because when groupings change from year to year, comparisons become impossible.

Malta also seems to have some issues with spelling. Aidan and Kieran became Aiden and Keiran between 2006 and 2009, for instance. And I’m sure “Gulia” was meant to be Giulia. (Though I do like the fact that there’s a “Julia/Gulia” grouping. Very Wedding Singer-esque.)